Snapped Ankles have shared a new single called ‘Pay The Rent’, while launching an awareness campaign “to help keep the tourbus lights on”.
The song is the second preview of the experimental dance-punk outfit’s fourth album ‘Hard Times Furious Dancing’, which is due for release on March 28 via The Leaf Label (pre-save/pre-order here).
According to the band’s Ankle Austin, the relentless electro tune finds Snapped Ankles “dancing at the misery of the situation” people in the arts are facing due to the cost of living crisis.
“Tune down the gas!” the group repeatedly warn the listener at one point in the furious single, before asking: “How are we gonna pay the rent?”
Per a press release, Snapped Ankles are “aiming their ire at the architects of Brexit, which has compounded issues, and made life as a touring band almost impossible to sustain“.
The London band have taken things a step further by announcing the launch of a GoFundTrees campaign – set to go live at 10am GMT tomorrow (February 21). You can sign up here.
The initiative allows fans and the general public to understand the true cost of touring in 2025, as well as give opportunities for them to donate funds to Snapped Ankles ahead of their upcoming tour. The group hope that this will “help keep the tourbus lights on” when they’re out on the road.
“As part of the awareness campaign, fans can join an online HIIT session, go to a furious dance party in Epping Forest, purchase one of the band’s infamous Ghillie Suits and also purchase exclusive merch,” a description reads.
Snapped Ankles are set to embark on their biggest tour to date next month, including a headline show at Fabric in London on May 15. See the full schedule below, and find any remaining tickets here.
MARCH
05 – Bedford Esquires, Bedford
06 – Junction, Cambridge
07 – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
08 – Colchester Arts Centre, Colchester
11 – Crookes Social Club, Sheffield
12 – The Crescent, York
13 – The Georgian Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees
14 – Room 2, Glasgow
15 – Rough Trade, Liverpool
18 – Face Bar, Reading
19 – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
20 – Lantern Hall, Bristol
21 – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
22 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
MAY
09 – The Forum, Tunbridge Wells
10 – Boileroom, Guildford
13 – The Old Market, Brighton
14 – Papillon, Southampton
15 – Fabric, London
16 – The Tin, Coventry
17 – Meltchester Festival @ Projekts Skatepark, Manchester
The forthcoming ‘Hard Times Furious Dancing’ will follow on from Snapped Ankles’ 2021 album ‘Forest Of Your Problems’.
It’ll see the band “trying to make sense of the enduring chaos of modernity”, which includes “technocratic rulers, the cost of living crisis and the weight of even just paying the rent”. The LP also features the recent single ‘Raoul’.
In 2023, it was reported that almost 50 per cent of UK musicians were working less in Europe since Brexit. Later, Manchester mayor Andy Burnham hit out at the “ridiculous” post-Brexit rules around artists touring Europe – calling for the “free exchange” of acts.
This came after the UK government was warned again that musicians and crew “could find themselves unemployed en masse” in 2022, after a hearing revealed the damage already being caused by Brexit to those wishing to tour Europe.
Figures from the UK music industry had previously spoken to NME about how the first summer of post-pandemic touring had shown that the complications of Brexit were “strangling the next generation of UK talent in the cradle”.
In late 2023, the inaugural Beyond The Music conference in Manchester explored multiple crises within the music industry, including the future of grassroots venues and the continuing impact of Brexit on UK artists struggling to tour Europe.
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